The Super Bowl continues to draw TV audiences like no other event, but the numbers generated on Sunday were actually smaller than last year.
According to Austin Karp of SportsBusiness Journal, FOX’s coverage generated an overnight rating of 47.6 for the Seahawks-Broncos game. That’s down a hair from last year’s 48.1, racked up by the Ravens-49ers contest in Super Bowl XLVII.
Still, it’s the fifth-highest rating for any Super Bowl.
The biggest numbers on Sunday night came not from Seattle nor from Denver but from Kansas City, which produced a schadenfreude-aided 58.1 number. In New York, the 50.5 rating was the highest New York rating since Giants-Broncos racked up a 53.4 in 1987.
That last part could be the strongest evidence yet that a New York/New Jersey Super Bowl won’t be a one-shot deal. The Giants have won three Super Bowls since that game in early 1987, and the one game hosted by New York outperformed each of them.